1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to conveyor lubricants. More particularly, the present invention concerns the use of alpha olefin sulfonates as conveyor lubricants. Even more particularly, the present invention concerns concentrates containing alpha olefin sulfonates and conveyor lubricants prepared therefrom.
2. Prior Art
In breweries, soft drink bottling operations and food processing plants, conveyors are used to move the bottles, jars, cans and the like along the line. In order to keep the conveyor chains clean and provide lubrication, it is customary to use a lubricant, such as an aqueous soap-based lubricant. The compositions, also, include chelating agents to prevent precipitation of calcium and magnesium soaps. These lubricants are, generally, manufactured and sold as concentrates which must, then, be diluted to, in general, about 1:100 with tap water at the point of use. However, prior to dilution, the concentrate is fed through proportioning pumps or injectors. It is important that the concentrated soaps, which tend to be very viscous, have their viscosity reduced. In the prior art, materials have been added to reduce viscosity of the concentrated lubricants, such as, propylene glycol, isopropyl alcohol, capric acid, neodecanoic acid, and fatty coconut acid. Additionally, surfactants, such as, alkoxylated alcohols have been employed to reduce viscosity. Such viscosity reducing compounds have inherent drawbacks, such as lubricity reduction; creation of additional precipitates, film deposition and the like.
While the art has readily accepted the use of water-soluble soaps as lubricants, they, in and of themselves, have certain disadvantages. First, and as noted above, when a soap is dissolved in hard water, it will precipitate as the calcium or magnesium salt of the fatty acid. This precipitate forms an undesirable greasy-type film.
Secondly, soaps lack resistance to acids. When contacted with an acid, the soap is converted back to the free fatty acid, which is insoluble. The free fatty acids, thus, will accumulate as a greasy soil on both the conveyor and the beverage container. This is quite often the case in pickle packing, as well as beer and soft drink bottling environments where the brine or beverage may overflow or the container, itself, may break.
Representative of prior art soap-based lubricants is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,274,973 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,860,521.
The present invention, as will subsequently be detailed, obviates many of the drawbacks associated with the prior art.